Growing up, my school district decided my neighborhood needed a bus because kids would have to cross a busy 4 lane street at rush hour. From kindergarten on I would walk around the corner and wait for the bus - (out of sight of my house or parents!) for up to 25 minutes. However, this T same bus then visited 2 other neighborhoods on the way, making a 8 minute bike trip into a 25 minute bus trip. By fourth grade I has negotiated with my parents to let me ride my bike. My Junior High was AT LEAST 4 miles away, and I rode my bike there (crossing that same busy street) nearly every day - I only took the bus when I snowed deeply enough the bike wasn't a possibility). I Even walked home once in the snow - in temps way lower than 30, when a water pipe froze and the School had to be closed. There were no buses and wouldn't be for hours, and my parents worked. I walked. It never occurred to me that it "wouldn't be safe" - I knew what to do if some strange guy in a van approached, and most of the time we walked in packs anyway ( who wants to walk home alone?)

Child abuse used to mean something. It meant the kid was getting burned by lit cigarettes, it meant the kid was having their limbs broken, starved (and I mean STARVED, not deprived of dinner or desert), it meant they went without vital medical treatment and it meant they were suffering serious injuries. Now it apparently means: Child had to walk to school. "something" might have happened. The big problem here is that it assumes that all manner of horrible things are inevitable if parents don't watch their children constantly.

And that is the point. To deny me the ability to teach my kids the same skills and self-awareness that I had growing up. Socialism/Communism/Fascism/Marxism rely on FEAR to keep people in line. They want to make "normal things", suspect and illegal, and they want Children to be so afraid of their own shadows that they never learn independence or self-reliance, and therefore will reflexively look to the government for protection. A Child walking to school by himself? Obviously a job for a police officer! You need a child-walker license and a note from the doctor. Wanna see it in action? Remind a liberals that when seconds count, the police are minutes away. They will tell you they would rather die at the hands of a murderer than defend themselves.

When things start getting tough, these adult children will either become "Lord of the Flies" stlye barbarian packs (like you are starting to see in Europe) or they will be victims, sitting on bridges waiting for their government assigned parent to come and get them and take them to a safe place ( like the Superdome- and rather than police the superdome, our government's reaction was to illegally confiscate guns from the people who were trying to defend themselves and their homes, and who weren't asking or wanting help from anyone. ) Hell, they can't even cope with cold weather

They wish to deny us the right to teach our kids to be self-governing adults, but that becomes their ulitmate weakness. Angry irrational kids will cause problems on their own, and it doesn't take much to goad them on. When the time comes to resist, all we need to do is deny the services these children rely on ( if they aren't self-denied by burning and and looting) and obstruct help from coming. (though as the example above shows, the government will probably not need any help in that regard)

A burst pipe and there is no water. A down transmission line and there is no electricity. A blocked Sewer and building hip dip in waste. The sort of damage the children are likely to cause themselves for "fun" ( Hey who left them unsupervised?) Who will these children blame? The "evil person" who broke the pipe? The person who cut the power? The person who flushed those bedsheets? NO! They will blame the government, because it is the government they have been taught to depend on, and its the government who is supposed to protect them. We merely need to ensure that the government daily demonstrates that it can do neither, and most days that means we will have to do little or nothing to help them along. Our infrastructure is not hardened by any means, and the liberals are daily making more people who depend upon it, but who couldn't do a dang thing on their own to fix it. We will be fighting the country featured in Idiocracy. That can be an encouraging thought.

One has to thinks it a grand conspiracy to take down the only place iin the world that constantly bucks their percieved authority.

I used to walk to Hebrew school when I was aged 9-11 and had to walk across a major four lane road and the walked along a dirt path on the side of the road and then wait almost forty minutes for class to begin. I had free time and did my homework. I never had given thought to some pos looking to abduct a victim. Now the left have successfully made it so criminals stay out of jail onto the streets so we have to worry every stinking moment of the day our children on the neighbors are out of sight.

Yes ladies and gents, liberalism is a cancer that erodes the entire basis for any society to exist which is to protect your property and citizens from harm caused by nefarious forces in the form of crimes against our money and against our physical being.

I pray that the pendulum swings as far to the right as the leftist scum have currently forced it to the left. If not, I'm fully prepared to force the issue with my firearms even if it means my life ending prematurely.

Logged

Remember, four boxes keep us free:The soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.

The big problem here is that it assumes that all manner of horrible things are inevitable if parents don't watch their children constantly.

I don't think that is necessarily the "big problem". In fact, I think it's rather beside the point amongst many other good and well-taken points.

I used to leave the house after breakfast, return (most days) for lunch, leave again, and return for dinner, and leave again until dark. My parents had no clue about the details of my whereabouts or well being. I survived just fine, and I was free. Free to explore my world, make my own mistakes, discover my own joys.

But we no longer live in the world of our youth. It is a more sinister, dangerous place. More people are willing to do more evil. I don't have a problem with people recognizing the difference between my childhood - "Leave it to Beaver" reruns after school - and today's evil-infested barrage of "entertainment", peer-pressure, and evildoers. Not to mention, the streets are busier; people are in a bigger hurry. It's more dangerous, and that's just the way it is.

I think "all manner of horrible things" are more likely today than they were 40 years ago, if parents don't use more vigilance than our parents did. That's a subtle difference in verbiage that I think reflects reality, and leads me to place the emphasis on the real culprit. It's not that there is no danger to be wary of. It's that liberals feel it is their place to do something about it.

My problem comes primarily from the idea that as a parent, I am incapable of or inadequate to the task of recognizing the dangers and making an adjustment to my parenting, and that I need guidance at best, consequences for failing to heed that guidance at worst. I don't have a problem with assumptions about a more dangerous world. I have a problem with the liberal assumption that I don't recognize it, and cannot or will not deal with it without their guidelines.

Logged

"A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means."

Could you be arrested for allowing your 5'th grade child to ride her bike one mile to school? That certainly seems crazy as we try to encourage active life styles for our kids. That certainly seems crazy as we try to promote safe routes to school programs. That certainly seems crazy as we talk of an obesity epidemic amongst our children. But that is what police in Elizabethton Tennessee are threatening.

Teresa Tryon said, "On August 25th my 10 year daughter arrived home via police officer, requested to speak to me on the front porch of my home. The officer informed me that in his 'judgement' it was unsafe for my daughter to ride her bike to school."

Ms Tryon called the mayor's office and the chief of police office in order to determine what laws she was breaking by allowing her daughter to ride her bike to school. Her daughter's route to school was reasonably safe.

Major Verran of the police department returned Ms Tryon's call. She said he told me, "He had spoke with the District Attorney's office who advised that until the officer can speak with Child Protective Services that if I allow my daughter to ride/walk to school I will be breaking the law and treated accordingly.

She asked, "What law she would be breaking to which the answer was 'child neglect'".

Ms Tryon confirm with Major Verran that her daughter was indeed breaking no laws at any level, but it was Ms Tryon who was breaking the law by allowing her daughter to ride/walk to school. Even though it only takes her daughter 7 - 9 minutes to bicycle to school, she is expected to ride the bus.

I would love to know how thes assholes would feel if some perveret they defended got his hands on one of their children. I wonder what they would do if you had them in a room a with the perp and handed the squish a gun with a full clip.

This has gotten so ridiculous!! I used to walk 1.5 miles to school from 3rd grade till 6th. For Jr High, I had to walk to my Elementary school (1.5 miles) to catch a bus to go an additional 7 miles. Then in High school the bus stop was right in front of my house, but the school was less than a mile as the crow flies but the bus ride took 9 miles, so I walked to school most days that I didn't drive myself. My sons high school is less than a mile from our house, yet his mother insists on driving him there and back every day. He is 15, a big kid (almost 6ft and 220lbs) and needs the exercise but she has bought into the fear, and there is nothing I can do to get her to see reason. The world has gone mad and no one in the gubermint cares to fix it, they just keep making it worse. I can care for myself and my family I don't need them, but they think otherwise and have the power to force their will on me. The day the shooting starts, I'll be on the front lines!!!

Yes, it was another day and time. Things have changed. However, in the 1940s, my mother and her younger brother (15 and 14) were allowed to hitch hike from Rocky Mount, NC to the outer banks (Caffeys Inlet Coast Guard Station, now Sanderling Resort, between Duck and Corolla.( J.F. knows this area well)) a distance of over a hundred miles. Later, mom's two younger brothers were allowed to do this when they reached the age of 14. My uncle even wrote a chapter about one such adventure in a little book he wrote. Funny stuff. They thought a bank robber had picked them up. Their protection was a boy scout pocket knife.

Point is: Mom was reared to be independent and self reliant. I think God every day that she tried to pass this on to her children. Today, she would be arrested and charged with child endangerment. This has to be fought until the authorities think twice about substitution of their judgment for that of the parent.

Logged

The problems we face today are there because the people who work for a livingare outnumbered by those who vote for a living.--------------The enemy of my enemy is my friend; the friend of my enemy is, well, he is just a dumbass.

As the summer of 1948 began, the prospects of our family spending any time at our beach house at Caffeys Inlet looked dim. An abrupt change occurred in our lives when it was found our daddy was in a terminal condition and would spend his remaining few months in a hospital.

Caffeys Inlet in those days was a small group of homes surrounding the Caffeys Inlet Coast Guard Station. The homes were originally built by the men stationed there and were constructed primarily of wood that had washed up on the beach. Through the years, as families moved and the number of men stationed there decreased, the homes were sold. The primary value of a house was the right to occupy the land, as most of them were in a poor state of repair. In 1947 my daddy purchased one of these houses with the intent to make extensive repairs and renovations the following year. In prior years we had rented a home there from an owner who lived in Rocky Mount.

There was an interesting and unstated legal status of the houses at Caffeys. It was understood the land was owned by a gun club to the north and the land under the houses was rented to the home owner for twenty five cents a year. And no additional houses or out structures could be built. No one could remember the last time anyone paid the twenty five cents. From time to time conversation took place about the length of the rental agreement and whether or not anyone could purchase the land. These conversations usually ended with the understanding that it was best to leave it alone.

We were living in Rocky Mount in a home purchased by our daddy toward the end of World War Two. It was a big house, situated on the corner of Madison and Rose Streets and typical of the large homes built in the late eighteen eighties when Rocky Mount experienced a major growth period, caused by the coming of the railroad. Our home was close to the street, with a small front yard, a sidewalk, a median of grass and then the street. In the median giant sycamore trees were spaced about fifteen feet a part. These trees provided cool shade during the hot summer months and a lot of fallen leaves during the fall. The home faced Madison Street, with a front porch that continued around to the Rose Street side, where it became the entranceway to a side door from the porte-cochere, built to accommodate a horse and carriage. Downstairs had a den, living room, dining room, large kitchen, breakfast room, a bedroom and a bathroom. The upstairs had three bedrooms, two sleeping porches and one bathroom. I never understood why two of the rooms were referred to as sleeping porches, as they were like the other bedrooms, except not heated.

There were five or six boys in our little group of friends, ranging in age from eleven to fourteen. I was thirteen and my brother Bill was fourteen. It was a Monday and we had gotten together for our early morning meeting, to decide what to do. We were meeting in our upstairs sleeping porch at the far end of the house and felt at ease with the privacy of the place, as we talked about what we could or should do. Baseball was a favorite early morning activity, even though none of us was really good at baseball. Whenever a large group got together to play and two boys were designate to choose up sides, participants from our little group were always chosen last.

One of our friends was short and a little over weight for his height. He had a great sense of humor and was eager to put a funny slant on just about anything that happened. His father was an engineer with the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad and his mother stayed at home. Another was about the same size, and the youngest of the group. He wore think glasses and was considered unconventional and hard headed. His father had worked for the railroad prior to his death and his mother was a nurse. The other member of the group that morning lived around the corner about a block away and his mother and father were divorced and his mother worked as a waitress in one of the busiest cafes in town. He had a bad temper buy could really throw a baseball. And then there was brother Bill, who was pretty good at anything he tried to do. He was better built than the rest of us and already on his way through puberty, which sometimes got in our way, when we wanted to talk about baseball and he wanted to talk about girls. I was the smallest and thinnest and tried to overcompensate for that by constantly seeking the position of leadership. It rarely worked. Our mother had just begun to work and we were entering our first summer without her being at home and we were to spend the summer in Rocky Mount.

As we talked that morning the discussion turned to going to the beach and the beach suggested was Caffeys Inlet. Our friends had never been there, but had heard our stories of the place and how much fun we had. The more we talked, the more excited and less realistic our thoughts and comments became until it was decided we would go. We all agreed we should approach the planning of going to the beach as a camping trip, just like the Boy Scouts. In fact the training obtained in the Scouts, in planning for camping trips and jamborees, helped a great deal as we put our thoughts together. The excitement grew as we talked about walking on the beach, boating, crabbing and fishing and being on our own. This was going to be the experience of our childhood.

Several families from Rocky Mount were usually in residence at Caffeys, from time to time, during the summer, and we cold always count on at least one of them being there. We knew our prospects for going looked good when we checked around and found out all three families were there. Their presence should soften the shock our parents would have, when we talked to them about letting us spend some time there, on our own.

We talked about the best approach to take, to get permission from our parents, to go this one hundred and sixty mile trip alone, using only our thumbs. That’s right, we were going to hitch hike to the beach! The excitement of the planning caused our level of confidence to rise to such a height that it did not occur to a one of us that there was anything wrong with a group of young boys hitch hiking to the beach, even though none of us had ever so much as hitch hiked across town. Reality began to set in as one after the other called his mother to tell her of our plans and asked to please let him go. And one after the other was told, well to put it mildly, ‘No!!’ (Each mother was sure those wild Thomas boys were behind yet another crazy idea, and this one capped the stack.)

Undaunted by their lack of success, and still on our emotional high, Bill and I called mother to tell her of our plans and ask if we could go. Her reaction was typical of her approach to raising children. She asked adult questions to be sure this was what we wanted to do. She inquired about how long we were going to be there, who was going to cook and what would we eat, as well as other good questions about things we had not considered. She remembered we had not left a frying pan when we closed the house the last time there. After satisfying herself about the prospects of the success of our plan she agreed we could go.

Mother would not allow us to take the big suit case, so we settled on an old Army duffel bag and an old weekend bag. To save space and to reduce the number of items, we each took our sleeping bag, rolled as tightly as possible and pushed it in the duffel bag. Other items included a couple of bathing suits each, three changes of clothes, a few cans of food and a frying pan.

Mother was employed by the church, about six blocks away, so we rode our bicycles there to get money for the trip. She wrote two checks, one for five dollars traveling money and the other was a blank check, for the purchase of food and supplies, made out to the general store in Duck. We cashed the check for five dollars at the neighborhood store on our way home to get our bags.

Since Bill and I had never hitched hiked before, we had to rely on the stories told to us by our older brother, Ben. He had done a good bit of hitch hitching and told us some scary stories about his experiences. Bill and I talked about all of that and devised our own plan. The plan was for me to get in the back seat of the car when it stopped and Bill would get in the front seat. I carried with me a metal handle that had broken off our vacuum cleaner. It was about eight inches long and heavily weighted on one end. It was placed just under the zipper of the smaller bag I carried and was to act as a black jack, should we run into any trouble on the way. If anyone got out of line, I was the hit him on the head and knock him out and Bill would take over driving the car. Bill had never driven a car before, but we thought since he was bigger and older he would he would be able to drive with greater skills than I. Of course I had never hit anyone over the head with a black jack type object before either, but had seen it in the movies many times and felt I knew how.

The moment of truth arrived, we had to make the final effort to leave or face questions from our friends on why we were still in town. We picked up our bags to walk the one block to highway, US 64 to begin our journey and I immediately realized they weighed too much. Bill would surely understand he would have to carry the heavier of the two. He was older and much stronger than I, a point I made to him many times during the trip.

Although Bill was only eleven months older, at that stage in our lives, he was about three years my senior, physically. I had not begun my growth spurt, and was probably five feet, three inches tall and maybe weighed ninety pounds. This combined with my white blond hair and glasses, gave me the appearance of a ten year old, especially beside my much larger, more mature appearing brother.

So there we were, two young boys, standing on the side of the road with an old Army duffel bag and a weekend bag, facing the traveling public with all the confidence in the world, born of ignorance.

Geologically, Rocky Mount is on the fall line, where the Coastal Plains and Piedmont Plateau meet. Archaeologist would tell you it is where the softer, sedimentary rock of the Coastal Plains meets the harder, metamorphic rock of the Piedmont and where this occurs in a river bed, there is either a falls or a rapids. From a topographical point of view it is, to its west, the beginning of the rolling hills, which anticipate the Piedmont Plateau. East of Rocky Mount the land begins to flatten and by the time you are east of Tarboro the only hills are in association with river formations, and the several river bluffs created eons ago. Bill and I knew all about this from the conversations between our parents over the years and remembered it because of our interests.

The major route east of Rocky Mount was US 64, a national highway proudly hailed by all North Carolinians as the road from Manteo to Murphy. It literarily connected a very elongated and diverse state.

As we made our way through this flat sandy land we enjoyed the different sounding names we heard and saw. In spite of the prevalence of agriculture, there was an abundance of wooded areas and a sense that you were always near water of some sort. So many creeks with swamp in their names; the frequency of pocosins (a shallow place or swamp easily holding water) and how the people got around in those areas in what my father called Cashie Carts, carts with two wheels, made of wooden spokes, six feet in diameter and drawn by mules; the numerous Carolina Bays, geological anomalies, the cause of which is still unknown; little towns and crossroads, each having a story; and strange and different names like, Bear Grass, Buckleberry Pocosin, Queen Anne Creek, Flat Swamp Creek, Perquimans River, Rabbit Corner, Chantilly, Sligo, Pasquotank, Coinjock and Great Dismal Swamp, to name a few.

We were in our element, feeling smarter than anyone who would pick us up, and ready, willing and able to tell them all we knew about anything.

Our first ride took us to Tarboro, about sixteen miles east of Rocky Mount. As was my practice when we made this trip as a family, I computed the mileage in my head, comparing it to the total mileage and as we rode by the Town Commons thought to myself we were ten percent of the way to the beach. The driver of the car let us out in front of the Edgecombe County Courthouse, near the middle of town. We went into the courthouse for some water and proudly told as many people as we saw who we were and where we were going. We just thought everybody would be interested. Our father was a lawyer and spent a good bit of time in the Registrar of Deeds Office in Tarboro, the county seat of Edgecombe County. He was well known in the courthouse and many of the people we saw there asked about the state of his health.

We left the courthouse and walked several blocks, to a place just outside of town, on the east side of the Tar River Bridge. We thought this would be the best place to hitch a ride, but when several people offered us rides to Rich Square, we realized it would be best to move to a place beyond that intersection.

A farmer gave us a ride to the Conetoe intersection, about eight miles outside of Tarboro. He let us out in the middle of nowhere and the passing traffic was not interested in slowing down to pick up two little boys hitch hiking. The next time a car stopped to pick us up, we asked the driver where or how far he was going. We were beginning to learn something about hitch hiking.

You can learn hitch hiking real fast. You start talking about where you are going and how far you have come and then you ask the driver where he’s going, to get an idea of exactly where he plans to let you out. Then, after you have accepted the ride and sufficient time has passed for him to know how special you are, in as indirect a way as you can, you tell the driver how heavy your bags are, and how you had to carry them across a recent town when someone let you out on the wrong side of town, and how tired it made you. In most cases this causes a driver, who was going to let you out on the west side of a town, for instance, to be incline to take you to the east side of that town, where you really need to be. This ploy worked pretty well for two little boys with two heavy bags.

A traveling salesman on his way to Plymouth from Raleigh stopped. This ride would get us to Williamston, where US 64 intersects with US 17. He would continue east on US 64 to Plymouth, while our route was to take US 17 to Elizabeth City and the US 158 the rest of the trip. When we got to Williamston we were forty percent of the way.

We were lucky the next ride took us to Edenton. The driver of the car was a real nice man who seemed truly interested in what we were doing and all the things we told him about the area. We completely relaxed with him and started talking before we got over the Roanoke River, east of town. We talked constantly, so proud of our freedom and the knowledge we had of the country, the crops growing, the weather, historical points of interests, how long it took to get to the beach and how fast our daddy drove when he drove us on this trip. We just felt like he ought to know how smart and well informed we were. We talked about where we were going and how remote it was; that people referred to it as the ‘jumping off place’, as though it was the end of the world.

As we approached Windsor we told him about a giant pecan tree growing in the yard of the former sheriff. Even though a block out of the way, he was interested enough to ride by it and stop. It was so large the three of us together could not put our arms together around it.

As we were leaving Windsor, right before returning to the main road and passing over the Cashie River, we pointed out Neidelman’s Grove. Our daddy had told the story of how a salesman from the north, named Neidelman, came to the Windsor area sometimes in the early nineteen hundreds and while there raped a young black girl. (I’m not sure we knew what rape was in those days, but we remembered the story.) The town folks were so incensed, they broke into the jail and took the man to that grove of oak trees and castrated him. The sheriff was so upset at what had happened he set the man free without a trial. From that day forward the area was known as Neidelman’s Grove.

The first impressive geological event was the Chowan River. Having lived in Rocky Mount all my life, I was accustomed to the Tar River, which skirts around the northern part of the city, as it makes its serpentine way east and south to the Pamlico Sound. It is less than fifty yards at its widest point and bright orange-muddy all the time. I can still remember the disbelief I had the first time we road over the Chowan River Bridge in the summer of 1942 and was told it was a river. It was hard to believe a river could be so wide and its waters so clear. And then there was the uniqueness of the cypress trees of various heights, which dotted its shore line, accentuating its beauty. The Chowan River Bridge was about two miles long and as you looked to your right going east, there was water all the way to the horizon, where the river flowed into and became the Albermarle Sound. I had never seen so much water in a river.

We used the heavy bag ploy as we approached Edenton, telling our driver about a place called the Triangle Café near the eastside of town and suggested it would be a great place for us to catch a ride. He was accommodating and took us there.

Edenton was the half way point of tour journey and we had made good time, but with too many rides. After about an hour and a half waiting for a ride, our pride in being half way began to diminish and we were beginning to question our decision to go to the beach. Maybe we should have stayed home. At one point, Bill and I talked about one of us going to the other side of the highway and trying to catch a ride back home. Whoever stopped the first car, the other would run to the other side of the road and jump in. But how could we ever face our circle of friends if we did that?

I do not recall what we were wearing or how we actually looked, but at that age Bill and I gave little attention to appearances, preferring to be comfortable and a little clean. There were the days before peer pressure or Madison Avenue and we were still under the influence of the minimalist philosophy, born during the depression and nurtured during World War Two. Very probably our blond hair was not combed and we were each wearing a cotton short sleeve shirt, with short khaki pants. We may have even been bare footed. Standing beside the road with your thumb in the air was not fun. It was the excitement of a car stopping and that first few minute with a stranger that was fun and it had been too long since we had experienced that. I do recall we got real tired of people passing us by and not even acknowledging we were there.

Finally, we were picked up and this time got a ride all the way to Elizabeth City. The driver was another nice man who was in the Coast Guard, on his way from Edenton to Norfolk. We continued what amounted to a travelogue, as we made our way through this beautiful country, with water always close by.

We had looked forward to going through downtown Hertford, which even through the eyes of a young boy, was a sleeping looking and restful place I thought would e a wonderful place to retire. It seemed as though it was eleven o’clock in the morning there, all the time. As we left Hertford the road snaked its way along the banks of the Perquimans River and we pointed out to the driver the place where the lyrics of Carolina Moon had been written.

We entered Elizabeth City from the west and passed Corinth Baptist Church, one of the prettiest churches on the trip, its beauty enhanced by the tranquil urban location. We passed through the downtown area, always an enjoyable experience riding over those uneven streets paved with bricks and hearing the unique sound made by our tires. Our driver had gone several blocks out of his way to Norfolk to take us to the bridge over the Pasquotank River, on the east side of town.

So far some interesting people had given us rides. Some asked, in a round about way, if we were running away from home. Some asked about our ages. I told them I was fourteen and Bill said he was fifteen, which made for interesting conversation, since we were only eleven months and four days apart. Some even said they either knew or had heard of our daddy. All were really surprised that parents of two young boys would allow them to undertake this trip alone. Except for the delays in being picked up, we were having a great time experiencing the joy of our independence and freedom.

For whatever the reason, we talked a lot to the people who picked us up. There was no prescribed or agreed to line of conversation, but it was usually something like this: We would tell them who we were, where we were from and where we were going. That through the years our family had made the trip to the beach many times, so many times in fact, that we knew a lot of people along the way. If we were to get a little worried about the person who picked us up, our plan was to make up a name of someone in the next town and say our mother had called ahead and they were expecting us to sop by and say hello. Another plan was to have a conversation between us, about a friend of the family in the next town who did not exist, and ask the other if he thought we should stop for the night.

Logged

The problems we face today are there because the people who work for a livingare outnumbered by those who vote for a living.--------------The enemy of my enemy is my friend; the friend of my enemy is, well, he is just a dumbass.

Too much time passed while waiting for a ride out of Elizabeth City and we were getting worried the sun would set before we could get to Caffeys Inlet. We took the first ride offered and found ourselves once again in the middle of nowhere. We got out at Belcross, as our ride turned north on this way to Sligo. Unfortunately, it did not occur to us to vary our path and go with him to Sligo, where the traffic flow from Norfolk to the Outer Banks would have given us greater opportunity for a ride. Even at that age we were creatures of habit. We waited a ling time in Belcross and this time in the uncut grass on the side of the road, a bad situation, made worse by the flies and mosquitoes.

We took the first ride that stopped, and with no questions asked. We just wanted to get out of there. A real nice black family, on their way home from shopping in Elizabeth City, stopped and offered us a ride. This was most unusual because not many black people had cars in those days and those who did usually accommodated only their friends. Turns out he and his wife were both school teachers. They told us how bad they felt letting us out in the middle of what was called the Cut Off, and hoped we would be able to get a ride soon.

The Cut Off was formed when the highway to the Outer Banks from Elizabeth City was changed to avoid going through Sligo to the north and to shorten the trip by several miles. The new highway was straight for about eight or ten miles and so new there were no service stations, houses or businesses on it. In the middle of the Cut Off was a secondary road where we got out of the car. We could look to the west about four miles and see if a car was coming.

We had to wait a long time and felt for the first time the sensation of standing beside the highway and have a car pass within two feet, while it was going fifty-five miles an hour (or more). There was really no way to tell how fast the cars were going, but one thing for sure, not one of them wanted to slow down to pick us up.

Several years later, this was the place I first experienced traveling over a hundred miles an hour, when the car I was in got up to one hundred and eight miles an hour. Without identifying the driver, I talked about this experience for many years as an indication of how I was not adverse to risk of high speed. I can remember to this day peeing over the top of the front seat from the back of the car and seeing the speedometer wavering between one hundred and eight and on hundred and ten miles an hour. The driver was afraid to take his eyes off the road to look at the speedometer and asked me to tell him how fast we were going. Prior to looking, I had been lying on the floor of the back seat, thinking that was the safest place to be.

It was getting late. Bill and I had hoped to be at Cafeys by now and there was still about forty-five miles to go. It was hot and the sun was thirty minutes from setting. The bull bats were circling high in the sky feeding on the insects abundant at that time of day. We had watched the sun set so many time over Currituck Sound we were good at judging how much longer it would be to sunset and how much longer there would be light. We knew our prospects of getting a ride after dark would be poor.

After the passage of too much time and too many cars, we observed the dark spot on the highway, four miles away, indicating a car was coming. Thinking one of us would have a better chance at getting a car to stop than two, this time I hid in the cornfield next to the highway. If the car stopped, I would come out as though I had gone to the bathroom and hopefully the driver would let us both get in.

Well, it worked or at least we thought it had. The car came to a screeching stop as the man driving leaned over to open the door. Bill jumped in the front seat and asked if there was enough room for his little brother. It was a pre-World War Two Packard, not well maintained, dirty and unkempt. Before he could answer, I jumped on the running board and had the door open. It would now be hard for the man to say no. When said “O.K., get in”, I moved some clothes boxes and other junky looking stuff out of the way and made myself as comfortable as possible in the back seat. Bill was alert in the front seat, as we began to explain why we were where we were, and on our way to the Outer Banks.

The man appeared to be about forty-five years old. His hair was cold black intertwined with silver gray and cut almost skin close on the side of this head. His face had pockmarks and he wore steel rimmed glasses. His clothes, although clean, looked like those of an appliance repairman.

We began to hear the man talking or mumbling to himself. He was saying something that sounded like, “I didn’t murder that son of a b***h, and if I did, he deserved to die.” For the first time that day neither of us knew how to respond or what to say. The man kept talking and during one of his more understandable statements said he understood you could drive on the Outer Banks without a driver’s license or a license plate on your car.

We were getting worried now. The man seemed to become more and more intense as he talked. More agitated about his situation and more interested in getting to some place where he could drive a car without a license plate. It was true at that time, one could drive a car on Ocracoke Island without a license plate, or at least that is what we had heard. So we assured the man he could do that.

We continued to ride. I moved my hand to the zipper of my bag and slowly opened it, being careful not to let him hear the movement of the zipper. I placed my hand firmly around the old vacuum cleaner handle to judge the time it would take and to get the routine of the movement fixed in my mind, for I knew our time for action might be real close.

We were about to tell him our father was a judge in Rocky Mount when he began to go on an emotional tirade abut the court system and judges. The man told us he had gotten out of Central Prison that day, after spending fifteen years there for murder. Our enjoyment of the trip and our sense of independence and freedom began to wane.

He slowed the car as we approached the cluster of homes and the few businesses that made up the community of Coinjock. There was Gard’s Store on the left with its gas pumps out front and several smaller businesses on the right. Our family had stopped frequently at Gard’s Store and Mr. Gard appeared to recognize us. Strange as it may seem, that was the closest place to Caffeys to buy ammunition for my daddy’s twenty-two rifle.

We had hoped the bridge over the Inter-coastal Waterway at Coinjock would be closed, giving us an opportunity to jump out of the car. Our hearts sank a little as we approached Coinjock and saw that the red lights were not flashing. We continued our ride and soon were nearing the Currituck Sound Bridge, which signaled us to start our preparation for getting out of this man’s car without him wanting to come with us and without being hurt. Not once did we talk about the remoteness of Caffeys Inlet.

Several times one of us would say to the other, something along the lines of, “there goes Mr. Foulture” or there is Mrs. Tillett” as we would see people on the side of the road. We were really worried now and had to come up with a plan to get away from this man.

The bridge over Currituck Sound was probably the longest bridge in the state. Although slightly less than three miles, before we measured it, the entire family was certain it had to be at least five miles long. It was a wooden bridge made of two by twelve boards, their length staggered and attached in their vertical position for the length and width of the bridge. A mixture of sand, stone and tar was added to the top of these boards for traction and protection from the elements. It was a sturdy bridge, yet quite narrow by today’s standards.

At about a third of the way across the Sound Bridge the man began to tell us how he had stolen the car we were in and that he hoped to get to Ocracoke Island during the dark of the evening. We may have been young and inexperienced, but we knew we cold easily be, or get into, a whole lot of trouble.

The road to Duck was about a half mile from the eastern end of the bridge and north of the highway. It was actually a cross road of dirt and sand, without a number, and even with the road sign indicating there was a road ahead, easily missed. The dirt road to the south went to Kitty Hawk.

Near the end of the bridge we began to tell the man in greater detail of his need to stop ahead and let us out. Our story was that friends of the family were to meet us at the Duck Road at eight o’clock that evening. With a quick look at my watch, that would give us about a twenty minute wait and should be close enough for him not to say he would wait with us.

We had just passed the entrance to Catco on our left. Catco was the name given to the vacation home of the principals who owned the China American Tobacco Company and was known to the locals as Martin’ Point Creek. We told him all of this to impress upon him our knowledge of the area and our acquaintance with the people. The road to Duck would be five hundred yards ahead.

From the time we left the bridge we experienced great fear that he would take us with him to Ocracoke Island. I could see the large wooden box at the edge of the road to Duck. The Merita bread man would put loves of bread in the box several times a week that would be brought to the store in Duck by the next resident who passed that way. When his car started slowing down for our stop we knew our story had been accepted and we were greatly relieved. As the car halted, we got our things together, thanked the man for the ride, wished him good luck, and jumped out. Fortunately, that was the last we ever saw or heard of him.

Our adventure was not over. We waited a few minutes and decided our best course of action would be to walk the five miles to Duck. We had never really liked to walk, preferring to ride a bicycle, ride in a car or in or on anything with wheels. I thought it best for Bill to take the duffel bag since he was older and so much stronger, an arrangement that did not last as long as I had hoped. Bill had other ideas.

Bill’s idea of fairness was for each of us to take the duffel bag for a hundred steps. That way we would last longer and it would be easier. It was not an easy trip. We got mad with each other several times and had there been anywhere to go, one of us would have left.

It took us a long time to get to the area known as the old CCC camp and we were really tired. (It is now Duck Woods or Southern Shores) It seemed that no matter how we arranged the stuff in the duffel bag, that frying pan was either on your shoulder or resting against your head and either way it brought pain. It was now after nine o’clock and dark, we had not eaten supper and our candy bars were gone.

Because of our dislike of snakes, we thought it best to stay on the sandy road at all times. As time passed and fatigue began to set in, we talked about resting. It was agreed the best way to rest would be to lie down in the middle of the road, propped up against our bags. Because we feared going to sleep and being run over by a car, it was decided we would take turns keeping our eyes closed while the other counted to one hundred. We went through several series of this, with each series counted by the other faster than the previous one. When one of us started counting to one hundred using fives, and then using tens, that put a stop to the process.

In an effort to put a more positive slant on our situation, I reviewed in my mind what we were doing, with the hardships of the men on the Bataan Death March and even that was not sufficient to keep me from approaching the point of complete dissatisfaction. I wanted to cry, but knew I could not.

We were both lying on the sandy road, looking skyward and it was just at my deepest point of despair, when Bill said he thought he saw the headlights of a car reflecting on the leaves of the tree branches over the road. I had my eyes closed and did not believe him, real sure he was saying that to get my hopes up. I opened my eyes and a few seconds later saw the reflection of the lights he had seen.

We jumped up, got our bags, stood in the middle of the road and started smiling as we waived into the headlights of what turned out to be a pickup truck. When the truck stopped, we saw it was Mr. and Mrs. Midget, the couple who ran the general store in Duck, returning from a buying trip in Norfolk. Duck was so remote very few vendors called upon them. We were pleased they recognized us and of course they wanted to know what in the world we were doing there at this time of night.

Mr. and Mrs. Midget were the nicest people in the world. Not because they picked us up, but just because they were. They had been married many years and did not have children. There home and yard was to the south of their store and contiguous to it. All of our family loved trading with them.

They asked us to spend the night and we promptly accepted. Their bedroom was downstairs and they told us we could sleep upstairs, which turned out to be a large room that had the appearance of a finished attic. We unrolled our sleeping bags on the floor and just before getting into them Mr. Midget called and asked if we would like to go fishing with him in the morning. We gladly accepted, without asking for any particulars.

The next morning we were awaken at four o’clock and told breakfast was on the table. Toward the end of breakfast, Mr. Midget placed a large piece of sharp cheddar cheese into his hot cup of coffee, drinking the coffee and spooning the cheese as though it was dessert. Sometime later I tried cheese in my coffee, but failed to get the same enjoyment as he. As we were about to leave the table Mr. Midget told us were going to pull a net from the ocean that had been set the previous evening. Until then we didn’t know if we were going fishing in the sound or the ocean or whether it would be with a rod and reel or a net.

Seven or eight fisherman, ranging in age from thirty five to fifty, plus one older man made up the group. We all piled on to, not into, one of the two beach buggies that would be our transportation to the beach.

In those days a beach buggy was nothing more than a stripped down model A Ford. The body had been removed, as was everything else not essential to transportation to and from the beach. The driver set on a Pepsi Cola crate and the metal foot paddles were bare. In the place of a back seat, eight or ten empty wooden boxes, about fifteen inches wide and deep and four feet long had been carefully stacked to be filled later with fish. The buggy had oversized tires, with very little tread and minimal inflation so it could travel in the deep sand on the approaches to the beach, as well as the beach itself.

The fishing village of Duck was on the Currituck Sound side of the Outer Banks, about three miles from the ocean. The area between Duck and the beach was made up of numerous flats and sand hills, somewhat like moguls on a challenging golf course, but much larger. They were formed by the prevailing northeast winds and had the appearance of being randomly placed. Some were populated by sea oats and some with a mixture of sea oats and gaillardia, a low flowering plant also common to that area of the coast. There were occasional thickets of myrtle, compounding further the task of finding and maintaining a road suitable for easy access to the beach.

It was a rough ride, in the cool morning air over the hills leading to the beach but the fishermen know their destination and the winding trail leading to it and little time was lost driving through this desolate area between Duck and the beach. As we topped the final hill at the edge of the beach, the sun was rising below a bank of clouds, compressing the sun’s rays and giving a unique and beautiful bright light effect to the buff colored seed pods of the sea oats. It could not have been a more beautiful morning.

When we arrived at the site of the net, the men took to their tasks in an orderly and efficient manner. There was little conversation, as they had done this together many times and knew how and when to do the details of their particular assignment. There was not a slacker among them and even the old man had a task he could handle with minimal effort.

I could see the two hundred-fifty foot net anchored about five hundred feet out to the sea, placed there the previous night by the men, using their boat. A long rope was attached to the net and its other end was tied to a loop of rope in the sand. This loop of rope was tied to what was referred to as a ‘dead man’, buried three to four feet in the sand.

The dead man is an interesting device, simply constructed and easily used. Two boards, about twelve inches wide, two inches thick and six feet in length were nailed together to form a cross. In the center of the cross a hole was drilled into which sufficient rope is placed with a large knot to serve a loop of rope four to five feet in diameter.

At the fishing site the previous evening, while the other men set the net, the old man had dug a hole, three to four foot deep, the exact size of the dead man. After the dead man had been placed in the hole and covered with sand, the exposed loop made an ideal and inexpensive way to anchor the net on the beach.

The driver of our buggy stopped near the place where the rope from the fishing net was tied to the loop. One of the men placed a box under the left rear axial of the buggy while the old man dug a hole under the left rear tire. A device like a steel drum had been attached to the left wheel, extending it ten to twelve inches, with a diameter of about four inches. This was used to bring in the several hundred feet of rope attached to the net. It was an interesting modification to the buggy and greatly reduced the effort required to bring in the net.

The buggy was firmly secured on the beach, facing in the direction of the fishing net. Its left wheel was off the sand; a wedge under the right wheel prevented it from turning; wedges under each of the front wheel kept the buggy from moving toward the net; and the motor was idling. The gearing of the buggy, as well as most cars of that time, was such that the rear wheel with the least resistance would be the wheel that turned. The men placed several loops of rope around the drum, and by slightly pulling on the rope, the tightness created a wench effect, pulling the rope, with the net attached to it, on to the beach.

We could feel the anxiety, mixed with the subdued excitement of the fishermen as the movement of the rope brought the net closer and closer to shore. They never know until the first ten or twenty yards of net came on the beach whether or not and to what extent they have any fish. This was to be a good day. The trick was to get the net on the beach far enough from the breakers, so if any fish managed to get out of the net you could run them down before they had a chance to get back into the water. Bill and I helped the fishermen by removing the gilled fish from the net; running down the loose fish; and placing the fish into the boxes. Speed was important from the time the fish came out of the water, as they had to remain fresh until taken to market.

We quickly filled the boxes and while others of the group tended the net, headed for Duck, transferred the boxes to Mr. Midget’s pickup truck and headed to the fish broker in the town of Currituck. Because there was no ice available, little time was wasted from the time we left the beach, to the time we drove the twenty or so miles to Currituck. Most of the fish were alive when we got there and the entire catch was sold for about one hundred and eighty dollars, a large sum of money in those days. (About $1,400 in 2002 dollars, adjusted for inflation.) We marveled on our return to Duck that all of this had been done and it was just nine o’clock in the morning.

We bought our groceries from Mrs. Midget, leaving her the check mother had made out to the store, with the understanding she would not fill in the amount until we were leaving to go back home to Rocky Mount. She ran a tab for us on the food we bought, mostly pork and beans, green beans, butter beans, corn, black eyed peas, green peas, several dozen eggs, bacon, butter, bread and powered coffee.

We drank a couple of Pepsi Colas as we waited for the mailman, who provided us transportation for the final leg of the trip. In less than twenty four hours from the time we started, we would be at Caffeys. It usually took less than four hours.

Logged

The problems we face today are there because the people who work for a livingare outnumbered by those who vote for a living.--------------The enemy of my enemy is my friend; the friend of my enemy is, well, he is just a dumbass.

Last May, Gunsmith and I went to Nagshead for a couple days, and the very nice young lady who served us dinner was a Midgett, from a long line of local Midgetts; police, firefighters - year-round people.

Last May, Gunsmith and I went to Nagshead for a couple days, and the very nice young lady who served us dinner was a Midgett, from a long line of local Midgetts; police, firefighters - year-round people.

Yeah, if you look at the lighthouse keepers and coast guardsmen, the Midgetts are all over the place.

I spent much of my summers until 1966 at the little shack my grandfather bought. Good times. Really, really good times. No t.v. and inside plumbing good times.

Logged

The problems we face today are there because the people who work for a livingare outnumbered by those who vote for a living.--------------The enemy of my enemy is my friend; the friend of my enemy is, well, he is just a dumbass.

Last May, Gunsmith and I went to Nagshead for a couple days, and the very nice young lady who served us dinner was a Midgett, from a long line of local Midgetts; police, firefighters - year-round people.

The school said the girls broke the district’s drug policy. Their families call the incident an accident and the school’s discipline heavy-handed.

No friggin ACCIDENT; the girl was having an asthma attack and her friend had medicine. This is how the parents defend this? An ACCIDENT?!

Trying not to curse vociferously here.

Lots of somebodies need beatings but not the girls.

I agree on the suggestion of a new section. The education bureaucracy is the womb of Leftism, and it's the only womb they consider sacrosanct. Along with taxation policy, education is one of the fundamental weapons of the Left. It is used, in a calculated way, to separate children from their families for as much of their lives as possible, keeping them as a captive audience for the daily infusion of out-and-out Marxist propaganda. And yes, they damn well know exactly what they are doing, and that is why I will shed no tears when they get caught up in the implosion that we all know is coming.

Obama has a long history of propagandizing for longer school hours and longer school years. He is now pushing policy that would mandate school attendance until 18 years of age. Everyone must be refashioned into a ward of the state you know.